The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1917. YESTERDAY’S WAR NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, 5 December 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1917. YESTERDAY’S WAR NEWS.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarlno News).

War news coming to hand yesterday would very likely prove a little disappointing, if not dispiriting to many people. Still, occasions must arise wnen tnere is a despatch ot incidents which ratner unduly preponderate towards either one or other extreme. It is in the natural course ot events that the war thermometer should fluctuate somewhat and a trilling fall of the mercury now and again does not indicate that anything is very seriously wrong with the Allied patient, 'Germany is gloating over Having made a separate peace with xtussia, but the terms of the pact, it

uiere is one, nave not yet been ais

omsea. German newspapers have freely and volubly commented 'Upon the subject as though consummation were complete, and one of them went so far as to talk about Russia being on' the side of Germany. If such is the case it ceTtainly constitutes another failure of Allied diplomacy, as against the intriguing subtility practised to an unprecedented dishonourable extreme by Germany. There is nothing on record to show that campaigns of lying, chicanery, craft ana cunning have succeeded more than in a temporary way; the liar is found out, or the truth dawns through subsequent happenings upon the victim and he almost invariably turns upon his new-found enemy with acts of bitterest resentment. If the boasted peace with Russia is true, and the men with whom Germany has made the peace are to any serious extent representative of the Russian people, it will seriously and detrimentally affect the Allied cause, but it is not thinkable that the Allies have failed, seeing what was in progress, to develop on definite lines some neutralising agency. The President of the United States has shed a gleam of enlightenment in a communication to the King of Roumauia; he promised that America would come to Roumanian assistance, but he did not disclose in what way. Nevertheless, we may believe that he was not endeavouring to raise any false hopes; we may feel sure that the long-looming Russian peace peril has been estimated at its due importance, and that some provision made to meet it and to parry it. The Prime Minister of France is very strongly urging that the time is opportune for the Japanese to put their armies into the field to offset the Russian peace. Lenin and Trotsky, with this peril, the Sword of Damocles, have something to be reckoned with, for they have already intimated that such a possibility has been discussed with Germany, and that Germany, in her profusion of promises, has satisfied the Russians by assuring them that a German army shall be opposed that will give the check supreme to any such Japanese aspirations. Britain and the other Allies are silent regarding Japan, but the French Premier urges persistently that the life of France should not be drained to the dregs while Japan puts nothing in the field towards securing that freedom which is the basis of the Allied cause. This we know, that whatever is being done by the Allies to neutralise an arrangement between Russia and Germany, it cannot now remain secret for long. The

world is fully advised of what Russia

and Germany are doing towards a separate peace, for reliable information of what the Allies are doing, the world must bide the Allies’ time, but it would be interesting to know how the United Slates is going to assist Roumania. A WEST FRONT BLUNDER.

News from the West Front seems ! to indicate that a British divisional commander has seriously blundered, and many precious lives have been sacrificed as the penalty of his carelessness or lapse in the highly sacred charge committed to him. The British have been completely surprised along a twenty-five-mile front. Trusting in those in command to apprise, them of danger, British soldiers in their baths, playing football, cooking their breakfasts, and indulging in other ways of spending a respite from the orgies of war, turn round to find that wave upon wave of the enemy, -assisted by artillery and machineguns, are within three hundred yards of them in their unpreparedness and false security. British lines were broken and pierced, and despite the glorious recovery made by our soldiers, and their bravery, determination and dogged courage in inflicting awful slaughter on their massed enemies, and eventually in first checking their onslaught, and finally in driving them back and restoring the British line, the cost was great in British life. How long are careless or incapable men to be tolerated where they can do so much harm? The charge laid against B'ritish conduct of the war comes to us again with renewed force and appropriateness, and America’s dissatisfaction with incapable men seems to be fully justified in this last deplorable exhibition of inattention to a duty in which the Allied fortunes were inThe Britsh right wing -was very seriously endangered, and an encircling ■ movement which would have resulted in the capture of the British army in the sector before Cambrai, and the loss of the territory won, was' only narrowly averted by the almost superhuman gallantry of British soldiers. The waste of life and munitions in regaining what was jeopardised by seeming remissness of someone would probably have been sufficient to have captured Cambrai. Be that as it may, a large army and vitally important. territory has again been snatched from the depressing possibilities of an official blunder by the British rank and file. It is gratifying to have Mr Philip Gibbs’ assurance that the Germans were driven back, after suffering such losses as will make them hesitate before again launching into hurriedly organised encircling-- movements against British lines. The fact that the Germans numbered three to one of the British adds to the glory of our victory.